I purchased this scope mount to use with a 30 mm Leapers 7" Tactedge scope. I had been using a JCS offset mount with no problems, but I wanted to switch to the Sidewinder so I could mount a red dot and a magnifying scope on the same mount.

It came in a flimsy white box wrapped in bubble wrap. It came with all the necessary screws and an adapter ring to let you mount 1" scopes. No instructions for those that need them. The Sidewinder is supposed to fit scopes with a 30 mm body diameter, and has a plastic insert that you use for the smaller 1" body diameter scopes. I even contacted RAP4 customer service to make sure it would work with my partiular scope and was told no problem.

My first problem is that my 30 mm scope would not fit correctly. The clamp would not clamp around the scope (too small) smoothly, and thus could not screw it closed. I finally squeezed really hard and it closed down around the scope, but put a big scratch in the black finish of my scope. I double checked the scope body diamter and it was 30 mm. You could "snap" the scope into the top half or bottom half of the mounting ring, but when you tried to close both halfs around the scope, it just wouldn't close all the way unless you really force it (which results in a scratched up scope). I assume there is some tolerance issue causing one or both halfs of the clamp to not mate exactly right. There really isn't any chamfer where the scope goes in the ring, and I think it needs one to help prevent scratching.

So with my scope finally mounted to the Sidewinder, I went to mount the Sidewinder on my gun. I quickly realized there was no way it would even fit on my gun. The problem is that the slotted riser that allows up/down adjustment hits my hopper. My MR1 has a clamping feedneck, which moves the hopper in closer to the gun vs the stock feedneck w/ plastic elbow. The extra 1" closer to the gun means that the riser will hit on any motorized hopper, Apache, Halo, Revy, etc. The only thing that even came close to fitting correctly was your standard 200 round "Weenie" hopper.

There is no way that this will work on a MR1 with either a clamping feedneck or motorized hopper. Looking back at the RAP4 photos, every MR series photo shows it on a gun with a stock plastic elbow and a weenie hopper. Now I know why. That is the only way it will fit!

Now you might be able to buy some additional rails, like risers with an extension that moves the rail further back on the gun over the cocking knob, so your scopes would have to mount behind your hopper. However, this would make a CQB dot sight useless because it would be too close.

The MR2/MR3 suffer from the same problem. You can't mount it toward the front of the gun with a clamping feedneck or motorized hopper. The longer rails on these guns may let you mount them towards the back without uneccessary adapters in some instances, but this is then too close to the back for a tactical red dot (may work for a scope with a small relief though).

Conclusion:

For $60, the Sidewinder only has limited usefulness for the MR series of markers. If you have installed a clamping feedneck on your gun, you might as well forget it . If you use a motorized hopper, it won't work with a clamping feedneck, and on some hoppers (wider ones), I don't think it would work with the stock plastic elbow. Since a clamping feedneck and motorized hopper are two of the most frequent upgrades on MR markers, this mount won't work for most users.

But if your happy with your $5 weenie hopper and love the stock plastic elbow, this should work great on your MR marker!

This is a good concept, and with some redesign it could work an MR series markers, but as is, I really can't recommend it. It would probably be nice on some other markers though. I would probably give the same mount a 7 on some other guns, but for the MR series, it gets a 5.